Of Dice and Pen

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Saturday, 1 July 2017

Doctor
Who finales (since 2005 at any
rate) tend to be large and epic, often with the fate of the universe
at stake. Series 9’s finale
took the Doctor and Clara to Gallifrey and to the end of the universe
itself. Way back in Series 5,
the entire universe had to be rebooted to save it. Series 10 looks
set to end quite epically, though perhaps at not quite so large a
scale. So far, it is more in the style of the Series 1 finale, which
only involved the fate of one solar system rather than the entire
universe.

But
the entire universe doesn’t need to be under threat for the stakes
to be high, and the stakes are certainly high in “World Enough and
Time”, the first part of the two-part Series 10 finale by Steven
Moffat. While “World Enough and Time” certainly bears many
similarities to first parts of previous finales, it also stands
apart. It is certainly one of the darkest Doctor Who
stories (not just finales), filled with an unrelenting sense of
impending doom. Clocks are
seen ticking forwards in this episode, yet the feel nevertheless is
one of a countdown—a countdown to a terrible catastrophe.
Catastrophe is certainly a hallmark of many Doctor Who
stories, but rarely does it feel so tangible and so close—not just
close to the characters, but to the viewers as well.

There’s
a lot to unpack in “World Enough and Time”. It’s a dense script
based around some complex scientific topics (and in typical science
fiction fashion, not entirely accurately portrayed) and
also has a heavy reliance on the show’s past (which is not always
to its benefit). Of course, the next episode (the actual Series 10
finale episode) will likely have an effect (either good, bad, or
both) on how many of the elements of “World Enough and Time”
ultimately work, but looked at on its own, without knowledge of what
is to come next (beyond the “Next Time” trailer), it is a hugely
enjoyable—if highly morbid—episode that keeps me captivated until
the end and has left me eager for the next. Yet it is also a highly
problematic episode that also gets a little too caught up in its own
self-references.

Thursday, 29 June 2017

Many
people have written for Doctor Who
over the years. Some have penned only a single script and, for
various and sundry reasons, have never written another. Some have
written two or three, and still others have written many. Robert
Holmes and Terrance Dicks were among the most prolific writers of the
classic Doctor Who
series. Since the show’s return in 2005, there have also been
several writers to write many episodes, including Mark Gatiss, who
wrote this year’s “Empress of Mars”. Russell T
Davies wrote many episodes during his time as showrunner, and Steven
Moffat wrote several episodes during Davies’s time and has
written numerous since taking
over as showrunner.

However,
until now, there has been no writer to have written for both the
original and revived series. Rona Munro is the first to fill this
role. Munro wrote the final story of the original series’ run,
1989’s “Survival”. This year, she has returned to Doctor
Who with the delightful
episode, “The Eaters of Light”.

In
several of my reviews for this year’s episodes, I have commented on
Series 10 being the most consistently good series in some time. To be
honest, over the previous two episodes, I was beginning to waver on
that opinion. “The Lie of the Land” was
frustrating, and “Empress of Mars”, while a decent episode, was
not all that great either. “The Eaters of Light”, however, has
restored my faith in the series. It returns to delivering what the
early episodes of this series delivered: excitement, humour, great
characters, an engaging plot, and everything needed for a great
Doctor Who episode.

Wednesday, 28 June 2017

The
Pathfinder Campaign Setting world of Golarion is a diverse world,
full of numerous different races, cultures, and ethnicities. This
goes beyond just the core races of humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes,
half-elves, half-orcs, and halflings. There are tieflings, aasimars,
goblins, ratfolk, and more. There are even androids and aliens from
other worlds. As the setting has expanded over various books, more
and more of these races have received expanded detail, from cultural
information to options to play them as player characters. But much of
that information is scattered across numerous different books, making
it sometimes hard to keep track of it all.

Inner Sea Races brings much of
this information into one spot. In doing so, it takes the opportunity
to revise and expand on that information, becoming the definitive
book on the varied peoples of the Inner Sea region of Golarion.
And it’s chock full of tons
of useful information that will help bring both PCs and NPCs alike to
life.

Inner
Sea Races is a 256-page
hardcover book. In layout,
it’s arranged similarly to the Advanced Race Guide, in that the
chapters are broken down based
on how common the races are.
However, the similarities mostly end there. Whereas Advanced
Race Guide is a book of
primarily game mechanics options with a bit of generic flavour text
for the races it covers,
Inner Sea Races
focuses almost entirely on flavour text, covering such things as
history, society, faith, and relations between races. In fact, there
is no mechanical information at all in the first three chapters. The
fourth chapter does introduce some new mechanical options, but this
is a relatively small portion of the book. People
looking for a vast array of new character
abilities may well be
disappointed with Inner Sea Races,
but people, like myself, looking for more flavour text will likely be
happier.

Tuesday, 27 June 2017

The
Ice Warriors have an unusual position on Doctor Who.
Pretty much any list of iconic Doctor Who
monsters will include the Ice Warriors on it, generally around
position four (after the
Daleks, Cybermen, and
Sontarans), yet the Ice Warriors haven’t actually appeared in all
that many stories—only four in the original series (the last of
which was “The Monster of Peladon” in 1974) and one in the new
series (“Cold
War” in Series 7).
It’s pretty telling that a group
that has had so few appearances has made such an impact. And I think
it’s with good reason. In my review of “Cold War” a
few years ago, I briefly explained why they are one of my favourite
Doctor Who monsters,
the primary reason being that they have more depth than most of
the show’s aliens.

It
was pretty much inevitable that the Ice Warriors would eventually
return to Doctor Who
again, especially since they are also
one of the favourite monsters
of Mark Gatiss, who has written and continues to write many Doctor
Who stories, including “Cold
War”. In “Empress of Mars” (again by Gatiss), the Ice Warriors
are encountered on their home planet of Mars for the first time (all
previous Ice Warrior stories have been on Earth or Peladon), and this
time, the humans are the invaders.

Truth
be told, “Empress of Mars” is not an incredible episode, but it
is a decent
one. It has all the elements that go into making a good Doctor
Who story, but doesn’t really
take any risks that might elevate it to the level of a great Doctor
Who story. Nevertheless, it’s
fun, entertaining, and an enjoyable way to spend 45 minutes.

There
are good Doctor Who episodes
and bad ones, great ones and terrible ones. Most are a mixture of
these qualities, with the good generally outweighing the bad, but
with a few the other way round. Every once in a while, though, an
episode comes along with a frustrating mixture of good and bad and
everything in between, making it extremely difficult to provide an
overall opinion of the episode. Even averaging it all out to
“mediocre” doesn’t truly convey the experience of watching the
episode.

“The
Lie of the Land” by Toby Whithouse is one such episode. There is
much about the episode that is really good—individual
moments that thrill and entertain, a compelling concept and setting,
some great performances, and more. Yet there is also so much that
just doesn’t hold together—scenes that don’t add much to the
overall story, a compelling setting that’s never
really explored, and more. As
the conclusion of a three-part epic, the episode falls completely
flat. The story begun and developed in “Extremis”
and “The Pyramid at the End of the World”
suddenly seems superfluous and those two episodes kind of pointless,
as “The Lie of the Land” doesn’t really do anything to build
on them, particularly in developing the Monks, who in this episode
become relatively generic villains and lose all that made them work
so well in the previous two.

Tuesday, 30 May 2017

Last
week’s episode, “Extremis”,
introduced us to Doctor Who’s
latest monstrous alien species, beings
we don’t really know the name of yet, but referred to as the monks
for their robed appearance. In “The Pyramid at the End of the
World”, we begin to see their plans unfold, but it’s a very
different style of alien invasion compared to what we’ve seen
before—but the monks
are very different aliens to what we’ve seen before as well.

What
results is a compelling and often tense episode that has many of the
markings of a classic. Unfortunately, it also has a number of flaws
that hold it short of hitting that mark, including several rather
wooden characters, and a few too many contrivances to allow plot
events to happen than are easily believable. There
are some great concepts and moments, though, and it certainly leaves
me eager to see more.

Monday, 29 May 2017

Note:
Although the episode after “Extremis” has already aired at the
time of posting this review, at the time of writing, I have not yet
watched “The Pyramid at the End of the World”. This review is
written without knowledge of what comes next.

I
mentioned in my review of the previous episode, “Oxygen”,
that I’ve found Series 10 to be the most consistently good series
of Doctor Who in a long time.
This opinion has definitely not changed. However, one of the things
I’ve particularly liked about the earlier episodes of the series is
that they have stopped focusing heavily on the show’s past and
instead have started looking forward to new ideas and new journeys.
In “Extremis”, the show does start looking to the past again.
This isn’t necessarily a
bad thing, and in fact, Doctor Who
should never completely disregard its past; looking to the past ought
to happen from time to time.

“Extremis”
handles this very well. Its use of the past helps to build its
future. However, “Extremis” is also a somewhat less accessible
episode to newer viewers than the previous five have been.
Considering that this series has been deliberately structured to be
an ideal “jumping-on” point for new viewers, I do wonder if
“Extremis” might be a bit of a misstep—not a big one, but a
little one. It will depend a
lot on what happens in future episodes.

Whether
it is or not, “Extremis” is still an excellent episode that I
enjoy immensely. It has a wonderfully foreboding atmosphere, and
introduces a creepy new set of monstrous aliens. It has a more
complex plot than the previous episodes of the series, but everything
ties together well and events are fully understandable by the end.
There are also some interesting developments in the series’ arc.
Overall, “Extremis” continues the high quality of Series 10 so
far.

Saturday, 20 May 2017

“Dirty
fighting” is a bit of a nebulous concept. In general, it tends to
mean using techniques that are less than honourable—tricks,
ambushes, poison, and so on. Yet what one person considers honourable
isn’t necessarily the same as what another person does, and truth
be told, if you’re in a fight to kill, is anything truly honourable
or dishonourable?

Dirty Tactics Toolbox talks
briefly about the “Ethics of Fighting Dirty”, pointing out that
dirty fighting isn’t necessarily evil, and that context and culture
can play a large role in determining what is considered dirty
fighting. The book as a whole
doesn’t make any judgements on whether any particular methods of
dirty fighting are good or evil (even poison use), and instead merely
focuses on offering various new options for Pathfinder characters to
make use of.

Dirty
Tactics Toolbox follows in the
vein of its predecessor “Toolbox” books: Ranged Tactics Toolbox and Melee Tactics Toolbox. And much
like those two other books, I have the same basic issues with it.
While it’s a perfectly functional book, there’s not a lot in it
that really stands out and is memorable when compared with the vast
amount of other options already available in the game. That said, I
do think it edges out the previous two books by a small margin by
having a few more things that did catch my attention and a few more
instances of nicely integrated world flavour.

Friday, 19 May 2017

One
thing I really like is when adventures provide dynamic
locations—places that aren’t always exactly the same no matter
when the PCs arrive. The monsters and NPCs move around and interact
with themselves, and not just with the PCs. They are places that make
the PCs feel like part of a living world, even if that world is full
of enemies that the PCs must fight.

Of
course, good gamemasters can make any adventure site be this way, but
some adventures are better than others at assisting GMs in this
regard. Just from reading the text, the locations come alive, full of
characters with motivations causing things to happen.
The second part of the Giantslayer Adventure Path, The Hill Giant’s Pledgeby
Larry Wilhelm is such an
adventure. It contains a wide assortment of interesting NPCs (both
villains and allies), each with fairly detailed back-stories and
motivations. It makes for a wonderfully dynamic adventure that can
play out in a multitude of different ways depending on what the PCs
do. There are a couple of inconsistencies here and there that don’t
work quite so well, but on the whole, it’s a very good continuation
of the adventure path.

Monday, 15 May 2017

It’s
been a long time since I was last so pleased with a Doctor Who
series. I was happy with much of Series 8 and 9, both of which I
continue to feel were
significant improvements over Series 5 through 7, but nevertheless,
they had their ups and downs. There were some excellent episodes,
like “Mummy on the Orient Express” and “Heaven Sent”, but also some
really bad ones, like “Kill the Moon” and “In the Forest of the
Night”, along with more
than a few mediocre ones.
Series 10, however, has been the most consistently good series since
Steven Moffat took over as showrunner.

It’s
probably important that I clarify that last statement with so
far. There’s still a little
over half the series to go and it is entirely possible that the
remainder could be horrible—but I don’t expect it to be. There
may well be a weaker
episode or two, but the
strength of the episodes so far is very encouraging for those to
come. I have high hopes that Series 10 will be a very strong series
when looked at as a whole.

The
fifth episode, “Oxygen”, perfectly demonstrates the qualities
that have helped make this series so good: strong characterisation of
the leads, better pacing that allows the stories to develop more
organically (albeit with some slightly rushed endings), and not
dwelling heavily on the show’s past. On
top of that, it also throws in
some very
effective scares, has a nicepolitical
message, and also manages to be one of the most scientifically
accurate Doctor Who
episodes (Doctor Who
will never be hard science fiction, but this episode edges closer
than most). In true Doctor Who
fashion, it even throws in some comedy along the way. It is, without
a doubt, a great episode to watch, and I can easily watch it over and
over.